Infinite Jest Read Free Page A

room’s panelling and recenters
     his weight. My uncle beams and straightens a straight watchband. 62.5% of the room’s
     faces are directed my way, pleasantly expectant. My chest bumps like a dryer with
     shoes in it. I compose what I project will be seen as a smile. I turn this way and
     that, slightly, sort of directing the expression to everyone in the room.
    There is a new silence. The yellow Dean’s eyebrows go circumflex. The two other Deans
     look to the Director of Composition. The tennis coach has moved to stand at the broad
     window, feeling at the back of his crewcut. Uncle Charles strokes the forearm above
     his watch. Sharp curved palm-shadows move slightly over the pine table’s shine, the
     one head’s shadow a black moon.
    ‘Is Hal all right, Chuck?’ Athletic Affairs asks. ‘Hal just seemed to… well, grimace.
     Is he in pain? Are you in pain, son?’
    ‘Hal’s right as rain,’ smiles my uncle, soothing the air with a casual hand. ‘Just
     a bit of a let’s call it maybe a facial tic, slightly, at all the adrenaline of being
     here on your impressive campus, justifying his seed so far without dropping a set,
     receiving that official written offer of not only waivers but a living allowance from
     Coach White here, on Pac 10 letterhead, being ready in all probability to sign a National
     Letter of Intent right here and now this very day, he’s indicated to me.’ C.T. looks
     to me, his look horribly mild. I do the safe thing, relaxing every muscle in my face,
     emptying out all expression. I stare carefully into the Kekuléan knot of the middle
     Dean’s necktie.
    My silent response to the expectant silence begins to affect the air of the room,
     the bits of dust and sportcoat-lint stirred around by the AC’s vents dancing jaggedly
     in the slanted plane of windowlight, the air over the table like the sparkling space
     just above a fresh-poured seltzer. The coach, in a slight accent neither British nor
     Australian, is telling C.T. that the whole application-interface process, while usually
     just a pleasant formality, is probably best accentuated by letting the applicant speak
     up for himself. Right and center Deans have inclined together in soft conference,
     forming a kind of tepee of skin and hair. I presume it’s probably
facilitate
that the tennis coach mistook for
accentuate,
though
accelerate,
while clunkier than
facilitate,
is from a phonetic perspective more sensible, as a mistake. The Dean with the flat
     yellow face has leaned forward, his lips drawn back from his teeth in what I see as
     concern. His hands come together on the conference table’s surface. His own fingers
     look like they mate as my own four-X series dissolves and I hold tight to the sides
     of my chair.
    We need candidly to chat re potential problems with my application, they and I, he
     is beginning to say. He makes a reference to candor and its value.
    ‘The issues my office faces with the application materials on file from you, Hal,
     involve some test scores.’ He glances down at a colorful sheet of standardized scores
     in the trench his arms have made. ‘The Admissions staff is looking at standardized
     test scores from you that are, as I’m sure you know and can explain, are, shall we
     say… subnormal.’ I’m to explain.
    It’s clear that this really pretty sincere yellow Dean at left is Admissions. And
     surely the little aviarian figure at right is Athletics, then, because the facial
     creases of the shaggy middle Dean are now pursed in a kind of distanced affront, an
     I’m-eating-something-that-makes-me-really-appreciate-the-presence-of-whatever-I’m-drinking-along-with-it
     look that spells professionally Academic reservations. An uncomplicated loyalty to
     standards, then, at center. My uncle looks to Athletics as if puzzled. He shifts slightly
     in his chair.
    The incongruity between Admissions’s hand- and face-color is almost wild. ‘—verbal
     scores that are just quite a bit